Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2021, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (8): 1500-1509.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.303013

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Induced pluripotent stem cell technology for spinal cord injury: a promising alternative therapy

Yu Li1, Ping-Ping Shen2, *, Bin Wang3, *   

  1. 1Clinical Stem Cell Center, the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China; 2State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and The Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China; 3Clinical Stem Cell Center, the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
  • Online:2021-08-15 Published:2021-01-13
  • Contact: Ping-Ping Shen, ppshen@nju.edu.cn; Bin Wang, wangbin022800@126.com.
  • Supported by:
    This project was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2017YFA0104304 (to BW), 2017YFA0205400 (to PPS), and 2017YFA0506000 (to PPS); the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81571213 (to BW); the Nanjing Medical Science and Technique Development Foundation of China, No. QRX17006 (to BW); the Nanjing Medical Science and Innovation Platform, No. ZDX16005 (to BW) and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Plan of Jiangsu Province (2019) (to BW).

PDF

163

Abstract: Spinal cord injury has long been a prominent challenge in the trauma repair process. Spinal cord injury is a research hotspot by virtue of its difficulty to treat and its escalating morbidity. Furthermore, spinal cord injury has a long period of disease progression and leads to complications that exert a lot of mental and economic pressure on patients. There are currently a large number of therapeutic strategies for treating spinal cord injury, which range from pharmacological and surgical methods to cell therapy and rehabilitation training. All of these strategies have positive effects in the course of spinal cord injury treatment. This review mainly discusses the problems regarding stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury, including the characteristics and action modes of all relevant cell types. Induced pluripotent stem cells, which represent a special kind of stem cell population, have gained impetus in cell therapy development because of a range of advantages. Induced pluripotent stem cells can be developed into the precursor cells of each neural cell type at the site of spinal cord injury, and have great potential for application in spinal cord injury therapy.

Key words: axon regeneration, cell therapy, functional recovery, induced pluripotent stem cell, mesenchymal stem cell, neural cells, neural precursor cell, neural stem cell, remyelination, spinal cord injury, stem cells